


Ghosts of Christmas: Part 1(Horror Advent #1)

by inky_starlight



Series: Horror Advent 2018 [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Chanyeol and Jongin are his aides, Christmas horror, Jongdae teaches high school English, M/M, Minseok is an an elementary school special education teacher, and also helps out with school musicals even though that probably won't come up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 22:59:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17010789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inky_starlight/pseuds/inky_starlight
Summary: Minseok and Jongdae finally moved into their first house just in time for Christmas. They find something in the attic and it all goes downhill from there.





	Ghosts of Christmas: Part 1(Horror Advent #1)

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to do a horror advent! Except I didn't get started on time because my job is super draining! But this is the first part so at least I started!

They closed on the house in time to move in by Christmas. It was a serious cause for celebration, since by early December it had been beginning to look like they wouldn’t make it. Minseok’s parents assured them it wasn’t a big deal, that they’d be happy to keep them at the house for Christmas, but the entirety Minseok’s and Jongdae’s things had been in Minseok’s parent’s garage for almost a full month ever since their apartment lease was up and Minseok and Jongdae were starting to get self-conscious about it. 

 

It was not an easy move- the moving truck ended up getting delayed and they were forced to spend the night with only the things they’d packed in their cars. Minseok had grumbled when they’d first gotten the news about the truck that everything that could go wrong was going to go wrong, and to an extent, he was right: their air mattress had a hole in it that they hadn’t noticed when they’d packed it, and aside from an overnight bag each that they’d packed just in case, they were left with mostly the extremely breakables and, blessedly, their microwave. 

 

But it was hard to get too annoyed when they were finally in their house.  _ Their house _ ! They had waited for this, and saved for it, for what felt like an eternity. And now they were here, unlocking their house with their house key and really, finally, moving in. 

 

“Shouldn’t you carry me across the threshold or something?” Minseok teased. 

 

“Oh my word, Minseok, stop!” Jongdae groaned, but laughed at the same time. 

 

So even though the air mattress was a bust, and they didn’t have any of their kitchen supplies, and couldn’t exactly get anything set up since all that was in their cars were things like the glass cat figurines Minseok’s grandma had given him or a lamp from Jongdae’s mom that Jongdae was pretty sure was as old as he was… they were still too giddy to really mind. They brought in their boxes, and one run to the store later, they had a cheap replacement air mattress, some paper plates and plastic utensils, and, although Minseok grumbled about it, some instant coffee. 

 

“I’ll take you out for breakfast in the morning,” Jongdae promised. “This is just until the truck comes and we get all your coffee supplies.”

 

“I know, I know.”

 

Minseok didn’t grumble for long: the air mattress was too eager to collapse for them to fool around on it, but the shower was just fine. 

 

The night went surprisingly quickly, and the truck made it to them just after they got home from breakfast. Half the boxes were nowhere near where Minseok and Jongdae had asked the movers to put them, but at the very least nothing was broken, and the furniture ended up in all the right places to boot. 

 

It didn’t take them long to get everything set up: they only had enough furniture for a two-bedroom apartment, and this was a three bedroom house. It wasn’t the largest three bedroom in the world and, save for the master bath, hadn’t been renovated since the 70’s, but with what little furniture they had, it was still pretty bare. Just shy of a week later, with unpacking solely after work and as they needed things in the morning, they had everything put together: their clothes in their shared dresser that they got from Jongdae’s mom and their own separate closets, their books all on bookshelves and reorganized, with Minseok’s oversized chair and the end table his niece had repainted close enough to the shelves to be cozy but far enough away to not cramped anymore, the kitchen all set up, and Minseok’s glass cats a little bit everywhere since they no longer had built in shelves. 

 

With the school district’s winter break approaching, Minseok’s principal was attempting to keep all the teachers hyped up enough to make it until the final day of school. They’d had everything from baked goods in the lounge to permission to wear jeans all month to, on some days, a “hot drink” cart roaming the halls for the teachers and staff. Her latest idea was to let the teachers leave as soon as all their students had and so, after he and his aides put his classroom back together (and moved the elf on the shelf- that thing was the best motivator he could find right now, although the “elf’s” notes were still all about the class needing to listen to their teachers) Minseok ended up home long before Jongdae, whose principal hadn’t quite thought that far yet. He knew that they weren’t going to have enough time to get the house really decorated together, report cards were due soon for both of them, and Jongdae had semester finals to grade, not to mention the break didn’t start until way too close to Christmas for comfort. Usually the boxes sat out for weeks in the apartment, getting in the way and making navigating the way to the door in the morning a frustrating effort. Now that they were in the house, the Christmas boxes were the only boxes still out, and while they didn’t have the same issue with space, he could still see them piled up in the dining room from his (Jongdae dubbed) “coffee station” in the kitchen and it was bothering him. With the extra time he might as well start getting everything done so they could get it out of the way faster, and Jongdae could at least have a nice festive spot to grade his papers. 

 

He put a playlist of some old Rankin Bass Christmas stop motions up on the television and got to work. With Jongdae’s allergies they had an artificial tree, but now that he was used to it, Minseok liked it. It was pre-lit, so they didn’t have to deal with untangling as many lights, for one thing. They’d do the ornaments together, with soju and homemade cookies like always, but Minseok could at least get the tree up and the box out of the way. After a few frustrating minutes he got it up and plugged in, positioned just so that he could get to the outlet but also keep the light off the television. Garland on the tops of the bookshelves, and little Christmas coasters that Jongdae’s mom had crocheted under the candles. They had enough lights to go around the little windows on either side of the door (going over the top of the door to connect them) and they had a wreath but they’d need to build up their outdoor decor stash.   

 

By the time Jongdae got home, Minseok had done the living room, kitchen, and the hall bathroom. They were hosting since both his and Jongdae’s parents were going to want to see their new house, and so Minseok had decided to focus on the areas of the house people were going to actually be in first. The living room had the tree, the garland on the bookshelves, the homemade coasters under the candles and slightly tacky-in-a-cute-way store-bought ones on the coffee table, the thick Christmas blanket on the couch, and stockings hung on hooks the previous owner had left under the mantle- they weren’t right over the fireplace but to the left of it, where there was a little cut out in the brick for storing firewood. The kitchen had their good Christmas table runner (all hand-done embroidery, beadwork, and even hand done lace- it was NICE) and some cute old reindeer figures along with their Christmas tree salt and pepper shakers. The hall bath had Christmas towels and some nice seasonal scented soap, along with an old sock snowman Minseok had made as an example for a classroom holiday party craft in years past (the snowman usually made its rounds around the apartment- Jongdae thought it was precious and Minseok thought it was mediocre at best, ugly at worst, so when Jongdae put up decorations it ended up on the entertainment center, but Minseok usually tried to move it to the bathroom.) The dining room was empty since they had no furniture in it, and Minseok didn’t have enough decor for their bedroom or the “hobby room” (aka the room where all their other crap got put- it was supposed to be an office but both Minseok and Jongdae did their teaching stuff in the living room.)

 

All in all, it was a little sparse. In a two bedroom apartment, it looked great, nice and full of Christmas spirit. But in a house that had a lot more room… like their amount of furniture, it just looked sparse. 

 

Minseok said as much to Jongdae after he’d kissed him, but Jongdae shook his head. 

 

“It might look that way now, Seokkie, but we’ll make it look homey in no time. I’m sure everyone does this once they first move into a house. I think it looks great.”

 

After Jongdae had changed into laying-around clothes, he agreed to help Minseok put the empty boxes up in the attic, to get them out of the way. Minseok stood on a chair to get to the little pull cord that pulled down the attic door, which was cut out of the ceiling in the hallway, and Jongdae put the chair to the side while Minseok unfolded the attached ladder stairs. The light was, mercifully, hooked up to the hall light switch, so Minseok didn’t have to worry about doing anything in the dark. He climbed the ladder stairs and poked his head up.

 

“Oh thank Heaven, it’s floored.” Minseok called down to Jongdae and he heard Jongdae sigh in relief. The attic was badly floored, sure, with what looked like a mixture of old doors and random boards of cheap plywood, but they didn’t have to worry about making a misstep and going down  through the ceiling, especially since the attic was low enough that they’d have to either hunch or crawl. 

 

Jongdae started passing up empty boxes to him, and Minseok stacked them neatly by a support post that was far enough from the attic door not to be a nuisance. After he was done, he looked around for a second. The attic was floored all the way over to what had to be the living room- where the ceiling sloped up in a point. There was still some storage space over what had to be the entryway and dining room, but unfortunately it wasn’t floored there. And it looked like… 

 

“Jongdae, there’s a box up here,” Minseok called down, scooting away from the attic entrance. 

 

“Really? What could it be?” Jongdae asked as he came up the ladder stairs. 

 

It wasn’t a large box, but big enough that there could be something worth looking at inside. It wasn’t all the way back by the dining room, but far enough that getting to it would be hard.

 

“Let’s see,” Minseok said, and stepped from the floored section onto the beam.

 

“Careful, Seokkie,” Jongdae warned.

 

“I am,” Minseok replied, but it didn’t come out very loud since he was trying to focus on moving. He had to hunch over and balance at the same time, and he could definitely feel that he was getting fuzzies from the insulation all over his sweater from where his shoulder was rubbing against it. 

 

Getting to the box wasn’t bad in comparison to getting it  _ out _ . It was wedged pretty firmly where the floor of the attic and the slope of the roof met, and Minseok couldn’t pull very hard or he’d risk flying backwards once it let go and going through the ceiling. 

 

So it took a few minutes, with him squatting down and trying to both turn his body to reach the box and balance at the same time.

 

“Ugh, fuck me, this is in here tight!”

 

“Gladly, babe,” Jongdae teased. Minseok just rolled his eyes. 

 

Finally, after a few minutes of tugging and cursing, Minseok got the box out. It wasn’t super light but not so heavy that he couldn’t carry it easily while still doing his balancing act. 

 

When he got back on the floored part of the attic, Jongdae looked smug and had most definitely been staring at his ass the entire time.

 

“Shut. Up.” Minseok groaned.

 

“I didn’t say anything.”

 

“Yeah, well you’re thinking it pretty loudly.”

 

While getting the box out of the attic, Minseok was able to grind his ass back against Jongdae several times, and just smirked when Jongdae whined. 

 

They drug the box into the living room for more room. The tape came off easy, but some of the box crumbled with it. It was old, or had been damp at one point. After a moment of hesitation, they opened up the flaps to find…

 

“Christmas ornaments?” Minseok frowned in confusion when he took in the box’s contents. 

 

“Why would the Millers leave these behind?” Jongdae was right there with him. 

 

There were several boxes of glass red balls, and a few of other little baubles. The ornament boxes were falling apart, and looked like they might even be older than their parents. Minseok picked one up and looked on the bottom of it. Handwritten in neat printing was “Fieldman’s Drug Store- 79 cents.”

 

Yep, definitely older than their parents. 

 

There were a few other things of ornaments in the box- one was a bag of plastic candy canes, the other a small tin jar of snowmen, and wrapped in bubble wrap in the bottom of that was a glass ball with faded colors and peeling paint. After a moment they figured out that it was tiny finger prints and the words “Baby’s First Christmas 1949.”

 

They wrapped it back up extremely carefully. The rest of the ornaments, though… it seemed a shame to just leave them there. 

 

“Why don’t we use them?” Jongdae suggested.

 

Minseok nodded. “Like a little tribute to the Millers.”

 

And so began their tradition of decorating the tree while getting drunk. They couldn’t overdo it, not tonight anyway, since they both had to teach in the morning. But an hour in and Jongdae was laughing way too loud, his hands glued to Minseok’s ass while Minseok talked his ear off. 

 

With them paying next to no attention to what they were doing, it was inevitable that an ornament would get broken. Minseok was picking up one of the old red balls in the Miller’s left behind box when Jongdae put his hands back on Minseok’s ass and squeezed, making Minseok squeak and drop the ornament

 

“Oh damn, I’m sorry Seok,” Jongdae apologized. “I wasn’t paying attention. I’ll go get the broom.”

 

“You’re fine, you’re fine. Thanks!” Minseok nodded, and waved him away. But as he looked down at the broken ornament by his feet, he realized something else. 

 

There, in the middle of the glass like it had been inside the ornament, was a little slip of paper. Carefully, so he didn’t move his feet, Minseok bent down and grabbed it. 

 

Written in dark red letters, script so flowy it was barely legible, were just the words:

 

“I’m coming.”

 

 


End file.
